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"Mean Girls" Beware: Ostracism Is Just as Harmful for the Bully

Written by Julia Haskins
| Published on March 9, 2013

The effects of ostracism can be just as harmful for the persecutor as they are for the victim.

It’s hard to feel sympathy for the mean girl, the one who decides who’s
"in" and who’s "out." It’s a common theme in pop culture, made popular
by the likes of Queen Bees and Wannabees, which inspired the hit movie Mean Girls.

But
new research suggests that Regina George needs empathy, too. By
ostracizing others, both the ostracizer and the victim face negative
emotional and psychological consequences. While it seems
counterintuitive, “when people comply in harming, they too suffer,” says
Nicole Legate, lead author of the Psychological Science paper and a doctoral candidate at the University of Rochester.

Much research has already been done on the effects of exclusion on the victims of ostracism, which can cut so deep as to make them feel less than human. But the act of excluding others can cause just as much pain, albeit in a different form.

"In
real life and in academic studies, we tend to focus on the harm done to
victims in cases of social aggression," said study co-author Richard
Ryan, professor of clinical and social psychology at the University of
Rochester. "This study shows that when people bend to pressure to
exclude others, they also pay a steep personal cost. Their distress is
different from the person excluded, but no less intense."

Measuring the Effects of Exclusion

A group of undergraduates played the online game Cyberball, which has been used in many studies
to observe the effects of ostracism within groups. The participants
played the virtual ball game with other “players” whom they were led to
believe were real people.

However, the game had been
pre-programmed to share the ball equally or to exclude a player after
sharing the ball twice. Each participant was put into a game scenario.
The ostracizer group was programmed to exclude a virtual player, and the
real-life participant was told to also exclude that same player. Next,
the game prevented certain players from participating, leaving them to
watch the others pass the ball to one another.

Participants were
also given instructions about with whom they could share the ball, and
whether they could share it freely. Those who were made to exclude
others experienced the most distress.

When comparing the
results of surveys assessing participants' moods and before and after
the study, researchers noted that people who were ostracized felt worse
about themselves and their abilities. "Although there are no visible
scars, ostracism has been shown to activate the same neural pathways as
physical pain," says Ryan.

How Do People Hurt One Another?

There
are many ways to make someone feel left out, and this study highlights
only a few of the ways ostracism poisons interpersonal relationships.

“Ostracism
broadly refers to a group or an individual excluding or ignoring
someone, and this can happen by not talking to someone in a group, not
throwing the ball to them in a game, and even in more subtle ways, such
as lack of eye contact,” Legate said.

The effects on someone
who is ostracized might be more obvious than the effects on those who do
the excluding, but all people crave a sense of belonging, even when it seems they are the ones ignoring or excluding others.

“Pressure
to exclude others is all too common, particularly among girls,” the
researchers explained. “People may face requests to ostracize someone
for personal reasons (e.g., a friend’s request to ostracize a romantic
rivalry) or prejudice (e.g., a peer’s request to ostracize a target
perceived as gay).”

Furthermore, Legate adds, such behavior in young people could have even more serious consequences down the road.

“Research
in developmental psychology has demonstrated the long-term effects
being a social aggressor,” she said. “[F]or example, social aggression
in childhood is an important predictor of later social and psychological
adjustment problems.”

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